Vital Questions

In light of the recent revelations about last year's third grade FCAT scores [see our post from May 27], the questions asked by FCAR vice president Marion Brady are more urgent than ever.

I'm (Mr.) Marion Brady, long-time Florida teacher, administrator, publisher consultant, teacher educator, policy analyst, author of texts and professional books, myriad journal articles, and six years of newspaper columns distributed by KRT. I'm under no contract to anyone, and am offering non-exclusive rights to the following because I think the issues are too important to ignore. I live in Cocoa, and my phone number is 321-636-3448.

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Jim Warford, executive director of the Florida Association of School Administrators, made an important point in his recent column in many of Florida's newspapers. The real FCAT issue isn't about accountability. All educators believe in it. Always have. Always will. It isn't being held accountable that frustrates them, but the FCAT's superficial, simplistic approach to it.

A source of even greater frustration for many is the degree to which the standardized testing fad has shut down dialog on education-related questions of great importance, questions bearing on student performance and societal well-being.

Here are some of those questions:

• The present thrust of education "reform" assumes the familiar curriculum, now locked in place by "standards and accountability," is as appropriate today as it was when it was adopted in 1892. Is it?

• If there are problems with the traditional, same-thing-for-everybody curriculum, don't "raising the bar" and "rigor" make the problems worse?

• Management experts say poor institutional performance almost always indicates unaddressed "system" problems. Poor FCAT scores aren't being blamed on the system but on the people in the system. Are the experts wrong?

• The FCAT is part of a reform movement that assumes market forces can shape schools up. At least one Florida legislator is even considering introducing legislation to pay students for passing scores. Does this mean that learning is unnatural and won't happen unless teachers and kids are threatened or bribed?

• The FCAT is rapidly pushing "frills" out of the curriculum. Has research now established that art, music, physical activity and so on have nothing to do with developing reasoning ability and other desirable educational outcomes?

• On critical, instruction-related questions, local educators and school boards are increasingly being pushed out of the decision-making loop. Does the history of top-down, centralized control suggest this change strategy works?

• Statewide, thousands of kids are being held back because of poor reading and math scores. Is the ability to interpret symbols and fill in ovals on multiple-choice tests the only way kids learn, and therefore sufficient reason to flunk them?

• Education is supposed to teach kids to think for themselves, not just recall what they've been ordered to remember. Are corporately produced, machine-scored tests able to judge the relative quality of complex thought processes? If so, why aren't they already doing that?

• Will manipulating the curriculum to "maintain America's competitive position in world trade" be more likely to ensure America's future well-being than helping kids love learning because it lets them pursue their abilities wherever they lead?

• Frantic to avoid the test-triggered "failing" label, educators use myriad strategies to "game" the system. For example, administrators, knowing ahead of time which kids will and which likely won't pass the FCAT, ignore them and flood the "marginals" with attention. Is it possible to track and counter all such score-distorting strategies?

• If, as Acting Commissioner of Education Jeanine Blomberg says, state officials "...will go back and re-equate and rescale the 2006 third-grade FCAT reading exam..." isn't this an admission of how open the scoring process is to political manipulation?

• The FCAT's defenders insist that it's legitimate because it's tied to the Sunshine State Standards. No one is questioning the quality of those
  "standards"- their lack of an overarching aim, their failure to capitalize on the mutually supportive nature of school subjects, or their emphasis on knowledge rather than on what kids can actually do with what they know. Aren't those problems sufficiently serious to warrant a fresh look at the Standards?
  

Back in the 1980s, before the leaders of business and industry and the politicians hi-jacked education reform, thoughtful educators were beginning to explore ways to move student intellectual performance to a whole new level. The keys were World War II-developed General Systems Theory and research into how the brain organizes information. The FCAT's "mother" - the No Child Left Behind legislation - stopped that effort dead in its tracks.

The new model for education reform is the 19th century classroom of Charles Dickens' "Mr. Gradgrind." Future generations will look back on this era and shake their heads in disbelief at the naivete of the amateurs now writing education policy.